The Journal of a Sporting Nomad 



at one o'clock at night there was no appreciable 

 difference in the light then and twelve o'clock 

 noon. 



I was asleep one night when the officer of the 

 watch sent down word to me that we were 

 amongst a large school of Finner whales. As I 

 had asked to be advised if we met any, the 

 summons was not altogether unexpected, but 

 I wished the genus whale at the bottom of the 

 sea when I was awakened ! However, I tumbled 

 up on deck, and was rewarded by seeing an 

 extraordinary number of these leviathans playing 

 about all round the steamer. There must have 

 been hundreds of them. Could some of the 

 whaling steamers have known of this school they 

 would have soon taken toll of their number. As 

 it was, I remained on the bridge watching them 

 until we had passed, then again turned into 

 my cosy berth. 



After a fine voyage we arrived at our destina- 

 tion, Ice Fjord. This is one of the most fre- 

 quented fjords of the island. There was a great 

 quantity of drift-ice about that made navigation 

 difficult. The engines were put " dead slow," 

 for it would be no sort of joke to ram a small 

 iceberg. Spitzbergen, " needle - pointed," is so 

 called on account of the jagged nature of the 

 tops of the mountains, which are serrated in 

 many instances like the edge of a saw. In the 

 early spring and again in autumn the drift-ice 



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